Sabin: Looking for an edge, Cowboys switch playbooks from paper to iPad

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IRVING — In this age of digital communication, news is
accessed online, messages are sent instantaneously over cellular networks and
the latest bestsellers are uploaded every day by readers who finish books
without ever having flipped a page.

The written word may not be dying, but paper certainly is. And the latest
front in its losing battle for survival is at Valley Ranch, home of the Dallas
Cowboys.

It’s here in one of the most traditional settings in football that the
Cowboys are embracing the new world in which they operate.

They are among a handful of NFL teams that have begun the process of
transferring the content of their six-inch-thick playbooks to iPads. In the
coming weeks, when organized team activities begin, Cowboys officials said they
plan to distribute the Apple-made tablet devices to each player on the roster
after the team’s staff used them during the draft and NFL combine for scouting
purposes.

“The players today have grown up with all of this technology,” Cowboys coach
Jason Garrett said. “We’re the ones, as coaches, who probably have to get more
acclimated than they do.”

That fact is undeniable. But football is a game of adaptation. Teams that
don’t adjust get left behind, which is why the Cowboys are taking the initiative
to digitally convert their offensive and defensive blueprints.

They have done so by contracting with an independent company, Baltimore-based
Global Apptitude, which has developed the application that has made it all
possible. Simply titled Playbook for i-Pad, the program was designed to serve
coaches and players determined to master the X’s and O’s part of the game.

“What we do is we actually try to take preparation to the next level,” said
Randy Fusee, one of Global Apptitude’s partners. “We go to football teams, and
we ask them what they need and we go and develop it for them.”

But Fusee already has a firm grasp of what coaches and players want. His
brother, Nick, is the director of information technology for the Baltimore
Ravens — the team that indirectly spawned Fusee’s company when they began
exploring the feasibility of having an iPad playbook in the fall of 2010.

Intrigued by the idea, the Ravens asked software developer Jeff Teles to
build a framework for an app. Soon after he began writing the code, Fusee joined
forces with Teles.

Months later, in the summer of 2011, the project the Ravens commissioned was
completed, Playbook was launched and Global Apptitude was born. Since then,
business has boomed. Seven other professional teams — Colts, Redskins, Ravens,
Seahawks, Lions, Panthers and Rams — have purchased the product.

It’s easy to see why. The program fuses print and video — allowing coaches to
insert the schematic drawings of plays along with accompanying clips
demonstrating how the plays should be properly executed.

For players who can’t conceptualize the plan simply by reading pages filled
with arrows, circles and letters, this technology creates a new avenue toward
comprehension.

“To be able to see it and have that imagery of it, that just makes it easier
to learn,” said Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee. “I think guys will pick stuff up
quicker. I think it’s just another tool we can use to become better football
players.”

It should also ease the burden placed on coaches and their assistants. After
all, Playbook is bundled with several subsidiary apps, including a calendar
designed to help teams build a daily schedule and a quiz generator that allows
players to be tested on the material they are taught.

Those trinkets add depth to Global Apptitude’s product, but what makes it so
attractive is its functionality.

Playbooks, amended from one week to the next during the season, can be
swapped out in a matter of seconds with one click of the button.

Information meant to be consumed by a certain subset of players can be
filtered and disseminated accordingly. Bookmarks, like the ones seen on web
browsers, allow easy access to text and video.

“The information will be presented the way the coaching staff wants it to,”
said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

But while Garrett sees the potential of Playbook, his thoughts about it are
colored by a tinge of skepticism.

“The one concern I have is I believe part of the learning process is writing
things down,” Garrett said.

“When you have a book and you have a page with a running play on it, a blitz
on it and a pass play on it and you have a pen in your hand, you can make notes,
outside release, stay sharp here, whatever, and that is helping you learn that
play. When you have the i-Pad, sometimes it’s into oblivion.”

Fusee has helped ease those worries by including a writing tool that allows
for notes to be scribbled in the margins with a stylus. Aware that coaches are
generally known as a paranoid bunch, he has also tried his best to eliminate
their persistent fear that a digital playbook could end up in the wrong hands.

Fusee assured the Cowboys that their information would be protected,
explaining that a server will be assigned to each club so that the risk of data
being commingled or obtained by competitors is virtually eliminated. Measures
have also been taken to guarantee that only users can access the playbook.

For instance, if a player is released from the team, his individual account
can be removed instantaneously. In turn, content that is meant to have a
specialized shelf life can be expunged at a predetermined date or time.

“Everything is encrypted,” Fusee said. “In our architecture, a playbook only
resides within our application. So you can only view a playbook if you can log
in to the system to activate the application.

“While it took a long year getting it out the door, we came out the other
side with a fully-secured system, and every NFL team was satisfied with all the
security measures we put in place.”

That includes the Cowboys, who are in the process of making a conversion that
will be an easy adjustment for some and difficult one for others.

“You just roll with the punches,” wide receivers coach Jimmy Robinson, 59,
said. “I am obviously an old-school guy. But I learned how to use the computer
at one time.”

And now he will do the same with the iPad — a device that has allowed X’s and
O’s to come to life while sending paper closer to its impending death. In the
end, technology has prevailed once again.